Twin baby girls born with different skin colors

A pair of adorable twin baby girls from Illinois — Kalani and Jarani Dean — born in April are getting attention because of their looks. Kalani has light skin and blue eyes, and Jarani has dark skin and brown eyes.

"At first when they were born, I wanted to believe it but it's so rare I didn't think it'd happen to my twins," their mother Whitney Meyer told CNN. "But sure enough they're biracial twins."

The girls’ parents are Whitney Meyer and Tomas Dean, from Quincy, Illinois. They’ve been posting pictures of the unique sisters on social media, but their story started going viral this week.

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Rare phenomenon

Each baby girl started out as a separate fertilized egg. In a fraternal twin situation, each baby inherits a different combination of genes from the mother and father, so when the parents are of different races, it is possible the inherited genes for skin color can differ. But the occurrence is rare. In Britain, for instance, the rate of mixed twins has been estimated at about 1 in 500 for mixed-race couples.